Hi all, just thought Id share with you some knowledge on the subject of (usb) mouse polling rates and how they can affect YOUR online gaming (well, they wouldnt affect anyone elses now would they)

Windows xp, being pretty trashy as it is, by default sets the windows usb polling rate at 125MHz thats an 8ms response time to me and you. What does this mean, well, this equates to LAG!! the bane of all counterstrike and alike players, and generally all good fps games. Now, what can we do about this,

well, interestingly enough we can, depending on the quality of your USB mouse (I have a razer diamondback) you can increase the responsiveness significantly.

The basics are, the polling rate determins the time it takes for an action performed on the mouse to be transmitted to your computer and thusly to the game/software your using, so this incorporates a slight delay (lag) into your responses within the game. This becomes more prenounced while playing online games where pings/latencies and rates also effect your lag or responsivness. This can mean the difference between a shotty between the eyes and getting that "God-like" voice sounding off in the background

Is I stated earlier the default polling rate is 125Mhz (8ms) and so naturally we get quite used to this when playing games, but wouldnt it be far greater to eliminate as best as possible this delay in sending mouse commands to your games to give a more fluid and responsive control over your gaming? id say hell yeah!

Right, there are a few different ranges you can use, and all are totally dependant upon your mouse's abilities, but none should harm your mouse (best have a ps2 mouse at hand incase yours aint up for the higher rate so u can change back to default)

Firstly: we have 125Mhz @8ms response time (default)

250Mhz @4ms response time

500Mhz @2ms response time

and the highest so far:

1000Mhz @**1ms** response time!!!

Right, I currently use a Razer Diamondback usb mouse, and have the polling rate set for 1000Mhz, the actual polling rate is often fractionally lower than stated but pretty damn good. I have personally noticed improvements in the sensitivity and responsivness in my mouse, especially when playing online fps games. But there is an improvement to be had when playing singleplayer fps games and other games alike.

I am providing a link to the software I used to patch my USB polling rate, and included is also a mouse polling rate detector to tell you your current response time. See the screenies. Just a note though. Once you change your polling rate you must restart windows for the changes to take affect. This can make games more enjoyable especially the online games, but it could also be that you just dont notice the difference, as in the case that your mouse only supports a marginally higher response time.

But anything which reduces the amount of lag gamers suffer can only be a good thing. I will amend the post if i have missed something, but I think i got everything on here.

As you can see from the screen shot the razer diamondback performs VERY well, often over 1000Mhz, less than 1ms, but on average its more like between 700-900Mhz, still a damn good improvement over 125...

Here is a link to both the current mouse polling rate detector and the USB polling rate patch, neither created by me so I claim no glory here, other than I zipped them together in one handy package

doesnt work in vista x64 anyway, driver seems old and only for win98/2000 and maybe xp

Click to expand...

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The howto is AIMED for Vista x64 users, The howto/guide also applies to Vista 32-bit, Windows XP SP2 & SP3, however there are even simpler methods to change the polling rate for those OS's

Did you read the howto? I posted it yesterday, wrote it 1 week ago and everything you need to successfully change the polling rate is included in the article, near the bottom you can see which mouses I have successfully tested the method on.

This guide applies to everyone who uses a computer mouse without drivers or where the drivers doesn't provide the option to change the polling rate or you don't want to use the drivers provided for some reason.

Click to expand...

I take that to mean that if you are using a mouse which includes a driver (like my Lachesis for example) which enables changing dpi, polling rate etc... then this is not for you.

(Also note that this thread was resurrected from 2 years ago... things have progressed by far since then! )

I take that to mean that if you are using a mouse which includes a driver (like my Lachesis for example) which enables changing dpi, polling rate etc... then this is not for you.

(Also note that this thread was resurrected from 2 years ago... things have progressed by far since then! )

Click to expand...

You are correct, you probably won't need to use anything but the official drivers if you are satisfied

But: for example there was a bug with the Razer DeathAdder drivers a few versions back that made your view skip straight up in the clouds whenever you clicked the mouse wheel and some people still claim that using the drivers from Razer with the DeathAdder makes the primary mousebuttons respond a little slower than without the official drivers.

Not to mention the MS herd of mouse, IME3.0, IMO1.1 and WMO which are underperforming to say the least at 125hz (default)

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The howto is AIMED for Vista x64 users, The howto/guide also applies to Vista 32-bit, Windows XP SP2 & SP3, however there are even simpler methods to change the polling rate for those OS's

Did you read the howto? I posted it yesterday, wrote it 1 week ago and everything you need to successfully change the polling rate is included in the article, near the bottom you can see which mouses I have successfully tested the method on.

Click to expand...

yea i did, i dont just run any old software on my pc and hope for the best, i read the thread liked it, followed the instructions 3 times (including restarts) and no joy, but nothing lost anyway, might just work with some i guess.

my mouse was reading 125mhz avg with the mouse rate checker, but tbh i dont have a problem in games anyway, just thought id give it a bash and see if i could tell any difference.

yea i did, i dont just run any old software on my pc and hope for the best, i read the thread liked it, followed the instructions 3 times (including restarts) and no joy, but nothing lost anyway, might just work with some i guess.

my mouse was reading 125mhz avg with the mouse rate checker, but tbh i dont have a problem in games anyway, just thought id give it a bash and see if i could tell any difference.

Click to expand...

Very strange, I don't want to sound rude, but did you disable UAC? You can reenable it after you've signed the custom mouse driver.